Any advice? Bots attacking my kickstarter

[carlianne]

Okay I don't know where else to ask this, has anyone here heard of this happening before?

A few hours ago my Kickstarter started getting a ton of tiny pledges all under $8 that were immediately cancelled. All accounts are "first time backers" with different names and different random small amounts pledged. I had ten like that in ten minutes. I've now had about 50 such pledges. Small pledge no reward selected, immediately cancelled.

I've put in a support ticket with Kickstarter but I just want to know if anyone knows of this happening or any ideas on what I can do? Orr maybe someone knows another person doing a Kickstarter right now and can say if it's happening to them too?

I've been able to see that the backers referral data says they are coming from Kickstarter internally so they aren't coming in through my social media accounts. I'm on the fence between it's not a problem and worried that it's ruining my campaign stats for search.

Thanks for any advice!

[burvantill]

@carlianne That's crazy!! I can't even find this situation in a google search. Although I did find ads to "buy pledges" whatever that means, doesn't sound legit though. I hope that this doesn't mess with your stats or red flag your kickstarter or anything. Total bummer.

[carlianne]

@burvantill thank you for looking! I had the same when I searched. It finally stopped after about 12 hours. But then started up again two days later . It's finally stopped again for now after atleast 200 type pledges

I started looking around on Twitter to see if anyone else posted about it and I found two other people complaining about it for their campaigns as well so I now know that it is atleast not just me.

They responded to my first support ticket with just a generic sorry about that we've taken care of that one person email but it was still happening after that and they haven't responded again

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@carlianne that sounds super annoying. Any update on this? Has it been resolved?

[carlianne]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz I was just updated that it happened to a number of other creators and that the trust and safety team is working on it. I haven't seen the bots since Saturday so fingers crossed!!

[Elizabeth Rose]

@carlianne Wow, so odd! I'll have to go check out your kickstarter!

[carlianne]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz @burvantill i got another update that the bot behavior won't impact my ranking in the algorithm so that was a relief to hear. Also it has been quiet since last weekend so hoping it was just a super crazy blip!